


A Wounded Ego and a Missing Eye

by Cinco



Category: Penelope (2006)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-19
Updated: 2010-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-13 19:06:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinco/pseuds/Cinco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a little person made Lemon unusual, but being a little person with an <em>eyepatch</em> made him ridiculous, like a pirate gnome from a fairytale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wounded Ego and a Missing Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elle_dritch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_dritch/gifts).



Being a little person made Lemon unusual, but being a little person with an _eyepatch_ made him ridiculous, like a pirate gnome from a fairytale.

He can’t blame Jessica for protecting her child. She had been overzealous, sure, maybe even vicious, but her motivation was clear. But she and Penelope had become the story that had gotten away, plus they _cost him an eye_ and some scary nightmares involving Jessica and her wooden mallet returning for his other eye. So when he had heard Edward Vanderman in the hallway, the temptation to follow that trail was irresistible. His old grudge had swum to the surface in an instant.

Lemon had met all kinds of people in his time as a tabloid reporter, but he had always specialized in awful ones. Nice people weren’t generally of much interest to the public. Sure, there was a hero here and an award-winner there, but it was the tragically flawed or outrageously moronic that sold papers, and most of the people Lemon had written about deserved the unpleasant maelstrom that fame necessarily entailed. He had tried, historically, to leave nice people out of his stories when he could—when it wouldn’t interfere with his own paycheck. Which was, when Lemon was being honest with himself, his primary concern.

Edward was a standard horsey-looking, stuck-up young rich kid with daddy issues and a posh accent, but he was driven to restore his reputation and had generous funds to put towards his cause. The way he suggested that he could offer $5000 for a photograph of Penelope Wilhern was so offhand that Lemon knew instantly he could have suggested $10,000, no doubt because Edward was so desperate for people to believe him. Lemon himself didn’t need to be convinced—except about the fangs.

Edward was also entitled and inconsiderate, and the first time he showed up to meet Lemon (and Max) outside the Wilhern Mansion he was forty-five minutes late (good thing Lemon had built in an hour for stupid rich kid time). But he was indignant about having to wait for Max, and the next day he was punctual—even five minutes early—and he had brought egg sandwiches for them both. So he was capable of learning, and overall Lemon felt he could have done worse in his new partner in crime, even if teaching him how to operate the surveillance equipment had been a huge pain in the ass. Apparently he’d never used anything more complicated than a television remote before.

They had a lot of time to kill in the van while they waited for Max to bring them their picture. He took his time about it, but by the third day Lemon and Edward had settled into a routine. It was a waste of time, but it wasn’t unbearable. Edward groused continually about how his father never listened to him and how half of the world events in the paper he brought to read every morning were stupid and pointless, but Lemon mostly tuned him out. Occasionally he had to elbow Edward to save a second keyboard from having coffee spilled onto it, but Edward _had_ reimbursed him for the first one.

After Max quit, Lemon was pleased to find that it was not, in fact, any kind of problem to get another $5000 out of the bottomless Vanderman bank account (plus extra money for the 20 phone lines Edward insisted they’d need).

They didn’t. After a week they had received about fifty phone calls from as many idiots claiming to have photos of frog-faced girls and dogs that looked like pigs, and one man who kept calling to ask what they were wearing. Hanging out with Edward Vanderman day after day did get wearing, although he did keep bringing breakfast.

When Penelope called and arranged the drop, Lemon started to rethink the whole thing. He was no stranger to the term “freak,” after all. He had heard Edward rant repeatedly about the terrifying killer pig girl, but after he’d heard her voice he wasn’t really surprised to find a lack of fangs in the photos Penelope lowered off the bridge. He tried to talk Edward out of publishing them, but he was hell-bent, even gleeful as he raced out to the workroom to seek validation. There was nothing like the pleasure of being right; Lemon had enjoyed it often enough himself, over the years. A hunch proven, a theory revealed as truth. He rarely cared what it meant for the people involved, any more than Edward had. Lemon was glad to see the back of him when Edward left the office that day, their business concluded.

Lemon followed Penelope through the newspaper stories about her and felt almost a paternal sense of pride. She held up well to public scrutiny; her quotes were intelligent and funny and she even began smiling for the photographers. But then there was the announcement of her engagement to Vanderman. Lemon knew instantly that it was an angle, that Edward would never be genuinely interested in Penelope without an underlying motive. It just wasn’t possible. Either he was trying to sway public opinion in his favor or he wanted the Wilhern fortune, but he was certainly up to no good.

Lemon went to see Max Campion in jail because he couldn’t not—armed robbery, seriously? At least his instincts had been right about one thing: the Max Campion he had known wasn’t capable of serious crime. Also, his pride was a little wounded that he had simply seen what he had wanted to see that night in the betting hall; he'd thought himself above judging on appearances. When he had finally found Johnny Martin—and he couldn’t stop himself from looking for him; Lemon followed trails, it was more of a calling than a profession—he had to ask about Penelope. The explanation didn’t suit him and the trail wasn’t cold, so he went to the Wilhern mansion for the wedding.

Jessica was nearly as terrifying as she had been in his memory, but Lemon had right on his side: Penelope needed to know information that only he had—or that only he would share, since Johnny, like an idiot, insisted on believing in the curse. The Wilherns turned him away, but when the news broke about Penelope having left Edward at the altar he hoped his information had gotten to her after all. He looked for her in the papers for months, but there was nothing. The photographers frequented her favorite spots looking for her for a while, but eventually the news moved on without Penelope.

Months later, Lemon had only thought of her in passing: Where was she now? What was she doing? Had she ever found Johnny? He had considered going to the bar, but Johnny had probably moved on too. He never asked himself if she had managed to break the curse, because there never was any curse.

One Saturday in late March, Lemon went to the lake with his camera hoping for some good shots. He liked the quiet and the calm exertion of rowing, and it was one of the first weekends that was warm enough—and there she was. Penelope on a swing set, with Johnny behind, pushing. Lemon knew her at once, although he could tell even at a distance that she was missing her snout.

He was a little surprised—the curse had been real after all—but he was mainly thinking that it looked _right_ , that they looked happy. The **Return of the Penelope** headline he had instantly envisioned when he’d realized it was her suddenly seemed mean. She'd had enough upheaval in her life already, and there would always be a new Gorilla Boy in the laundry chute. He would row back to the dock and take a few pictures of the trees and the sky like he had set out to do. There would be other stories waiting for him at work on Monday, other trails that he had an eye left to see.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear elle_dritch,  
> Merry Yule! I hope you like this. Thank you so much for your very helpful and inspiring letter!  
> Love, your Yulegoat
> 
> Many thanks to my three brillant betas, summerstorm, icouldskateaway, and jehane18! Each of them improved this story immensely.


End file.
